Taiwanese baseball fans eager to catch a glimpse of some big league action are expressing dismay over the L.A. Dodgers roster sent to participate in this month’s upcoming exhibition match against the CPBL’s finest.
The roster includes Manny Ramirez and James Loney, but after that features only 17 players with big league experience.  Fans hoping to [...]

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As we’ve all heard by now, Wang Chien-ming is on his way to the Washington Nationals.  The writing was on the wall when the Yankees non-tendered Wang in December, but there was still speculation Wang would re-sign with the Bombers at a reduced rate in the end.  Now the break-up is official.
I’m looking forward to [...]

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Required Reading for NPB fans and followers: The Japan Times is currently running Robert Whiting’s four-installment series detailing the rise and fall of Bobby Valentine’s career with the Chiba Lotte Marines.  Whiting’s meticulously researched account describes a clandestine campaign to oust Valentine.
Whiting takes readers through Valentine’s meteoric rise to stardom after leading the Marines to [...]

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Found this on ESPN, and then a more expanded story from The Biz of Baseball, which goes into some further history of MLB’s activities in China.
The MLB Development Center is located at Dongbeitang High School in Xishan District, Wuxi, which is located in the eastern part of China on the Yangtze River . The center [...]

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Hak-ju Lee is the focal point of an article, which, I’m linking from the Ethopian Times, but is originally a Wall Street Journal piece. The article is called Foreign Talent Loads the Bases in Minor Leagues. Clever.
The piece talks about how international MLB is becoming. We all knew that, but I have to admit I [...]

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Major League Trade Rumors brings word of two amateur signings out of Korea.
The Chicago Cubs have continued their Atilla the Hun-like march across the Asian continent, this time signing centerfielder Na Kyung-min to a minor league deal with a bonus reported around 725,000. Na has been called “the fastest player in Korean high school baseball” [...]

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In an earlier April post so clairvoyant that it was erroneously dismissed as an April Fool’s joke by some EWC readers, I hipped readers to the fact that Hideki Irabu was on the comeback trail.
Patrick at NPB tracker brings word from Japan that the comeback is indeed in full effect. Irabu has joined the [...]

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Not something you’d want to stay up all night at Outback chewing on, but it’s kind of interesting to think about who the best Asian starting pitcher of 2009 MLB season has been. Baseball Daily Digest says it’s Hiroki Kuroda. Hard to argue against that, but the writer goes through the list anyway — Bruce [...]

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Taiwan “slaughtered” China 13-1 in the Asian Championships as reported here in the none-too-subtle Chinese Times. I don’t want to make fun of the article (and when I write that you know I am), but while I think this is a nice win for the Taiwanese team, I’m not sure it “wipes out the grievance resulting [...]

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DJ chips in with a report on the opening round of the Asian Championships in Narita. As you can see, there won’t be many complaints about the single elimination format.
July 27:
Japan 12, Philippines 0
Thailand 6, Indonesia 1
July 28:
Japan 12, Thailand 0
Philippines 6, Indonesia 1
July 29:
Japan 13, Indonesia 0
Philippines 8, [...]

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The Boston Herald’s Michael Silverman brings news that Boston’s Matsuzaka Daisuke finds himself in hot water after publicly criticizing his throwing rehab program. He reportedly vented his frustration with not being able to throw as much as he wants, and claimed Japanese pitchers require different conditioning programs due to “ethnic, racial and physiological differences”.
Manager Terry [...]

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According to Taiwan Baseball, The Chicago Cubs have signed their third player in Taiwan this year, inking 6′5 Sanhsin HS righty Wang Tsu-an to a minor league deal with a signing bonus reportedly exceeding 300,000.
Wang could be considered a high-risk/high-reward type sign, with a fastball that sits in the high eighties.  He has a very [...]

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A couple interesting notes concerning world baseball I recently came upon. First off, for reasons that don’t seem to be public, Moscow will no longer be one of the hosts of the 2009 Baseball World Cup. Instead, Pool D — which includes Japan, Nicaragua, Russia and Britain — will now happen in Zagreb, Croatia. Too [...]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0AtwyZwZUU

Taichung Intercontinental Stadium.  Some elite players have stepped foot on to that field:  Ichiro.  Carl Crawford.  Darvish. Longoria.  Karim Garcia. Most NPB and KBO star hitters.  And some up-and-comers like Rasmus and Dexter Fowler. Now you can add another name to that storied list: Jackson Broder.
Now, keep in mind that this is impromptu, or I [...]

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I got a call the other day from a Taiwanese baseball fan and long-time reader of our site who gave me a bit of a scolding. “How come you haven’t really done that much to praise Ni?” he said in impeccable English. “Look, this is exactly the kind of player you need to [...]

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Ryo over at the always informative NPB Tracker has given us some rather useful links to blogs covering various NPB teams. You’ll need a translation tool if you don’t read Japanese, but the blogs give some unique insights from the perspectives of various staff members and front office personnel. If you ever wanted [...]

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You might know Jason Giambi.  He was the 2000 AL MVP, is a five-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger award winner.   He’s hit 406 home runs in his career. And there was that little juice issue we heard about now and again.
Yet none of this earned him a spot on the radar of recent [...]

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This could be a very big deal for baseball in Asia. The groundwork for a new professional baseball league based in Australia, set to start play in November of 2010, that could include other Asian cities.
!!!
Could this be the beginnings of the Pacific Rim wide league we here at EWC have always thought might just [...]

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The Pirates have signed their second position player out of Taiwan High school this year, inking first baseman/pitcher Hsu Chi-wei.  The 17 year-old lefty stands at 5′11 and throws in the low 80’s.  Taiwan Baseball has more here.

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With an eye on the Futures Game rosters, Baseball Digest Daily takes a look back at an Asian prospects list it compiled earlier this year. Funny enough, a few of us that were scouting a tournament last week came across the original list and talked about it for a good 30 minutes. There’s no right [...]

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